


This is the Way [to Lose Friends and Disappoint People]

by NiCad



Series: A New Way [2]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Gen, Paz was right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-23 10:44:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23710246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiCad/pseuds/NiCad
Summary: Din Djarin is lost.Din Djarin is a tool.Mando is a traitor.Mando is out of his goddamn mind.The Armorer, Paz, Greef, and Cara interpret Din’s self-destructiveness through their own lenses.
Series: A New Way [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1699135
Comments: 22
Kudos: 150
Collections: The Mandalorian Ficathon — April 2020





	This is the Way [to Lose Friends and Disappoint People]

_You don’t understand who they thought  
I was supposed to be   
Look at me now a man   
Who won’t let himself be   
Down in a hole, feelin’ so small   
Down in a hole, losin’ my soul_

Alice in Chains, [Down in a Hole](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8hT3oDDf6c)

* * *

The Armorer assessed Djarin as he entered her forge.

The state of his armor irked her to her core.

The fact that it had an extensive amount of mileage wasn’t the problem. The scarred Durasteel was a testament to his experience, and he maintained what he had well enough. The problem was its patchwork nature. She had no idea where he’d picked up the left thigh plate or what it was made from, but the Shoretrooper pauldron and gauntlets were truly galling. Like he’d picked apart the skin of a fallen enemy and slapped it on himself to cover his own wounds. His choice appeared to be one of economy; his skill level was such that the inadequate pieces still worked well enough for him, and he always insisted that whatever spare resources he brought in be reserved for the foundlings, refusing offers for upgrades. That he had not yet met a challenge worthy of a signet was telling; most Mandalorians had met their match by the time they hit thirty, if they’d survived that long. Djarin was trudging through his mid-forties and was still only getting pulled apart in bits and pieces at a time. It would happen soon; he would either earn his signet or the occasion that would warrant one would kill him.

Sometimes she wondered how she let him out the door looking like this; a walking insult to her skill and craft.

He sat before her now and placed his most recent earnings on the table. A meager amount for the length of time he’d been gone, but she’d heard things were getting lean for the Guild.

Then he placed an ingot of beskar on the table.

Oh. _Oh, this_ was something.

_Finally_ , he accepted a replacement for the Shoretrooper pauldron. More likely, he couldn’t bring up the words to form a refusal with the beskar right there in front of him. Again, his mention of the foundlings. Again, his declaration that he himself had once been a foundling. “I know.” As if she’d forgotten the first three times he’d said it.

As if he’d forgotten that he’d been here before to say it.

As if he had wandered off and gotten lost again.

* * *

Paz fumed.

Djarin drove him absolutely mad.

Djarin had been a member of the Tribe for just over two years. In that time, Paz hadn’t seen him initiate a conversation with a single person other than the Armorer. He’d descend the steps to the covert, swagger down the corridor to the forge, ignore every single person who lifted a helmet to him, place almost every dime he earned on the table, mutter something about the foundlings, stock up on ammo, and swagger back out.

After his first year, he’d gained the reputation as the highest earner of the covert. He was the most expensive bounty hunter on Nevarro.

Smug little shit.

Not that Paz had been around every time Djarin came through, but he’d seen enough to know that Djarin never stuck around for long. He’d gone to the infirmary once or twice. Spent the night once when Casha managed to catch his attention, and she’d had to nearly knock him down in the corridor to do so. Someone had asked her “Why _Djarin_?” a few days later. Her response had been, “I wasn’t in the mood to _talk_.”

And today, he’d had the nerve to walk in here with a mind-blowing amount of beskar from an _Imperial smelter_.

“Djarin’s reputation is hard-earned,” said the Armorer.

“To _earn_ what was _ours_ to begin with? He would have stolen it if he had any stones at all. He’s a _coward_. He did whatever they told him to do, and god knows what that must have been for that much beskar. He is a liability and he is going to get us all killed.”

“The beskar has returned.”

“And you put most of it right back on him.”

“Do you doubt his loyalties?”

“He’s a Death Watch Foundling. He’ll murder all of us if he discovers the circumstances of his rescue.”

“Din Djarin is as dogmatic as he is persistent. He will not look beyond the Way. If per chance he does, he will be but one man against the covert. When he passes to the _manda_ in service to Mandalore, the beskar will return to the forge.”

Light footsteps pattered down the hall. Nishan, one of the children who would swear the Creed in a few months, stood breathless at the entrance, returned from his mission.

“What news?” asked the Armorer.

“A baby.”

The Armorer straightened. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Nishan responded, holding his hands out about a foot apart. “Little green baby. Ginormous ears.”

Paz clenched his fists. “Djarin. Sold. A baby. To Imps.”

Even the Armorer was taken aback. She knew _something_ was wrong with Djarin. Possibly many things. But she had not suspected this level of dysfunction. Many of the foundlings captured by the “Separatist” attacks staged by Death Watch in the days of Djarin’s childhood had indeed been problematic for a variety of reasons. For Djarin to sell one, when the only words that ever managed to make it out of his mouth were about saving resources for them, spoke volumes. Even the beskar wasn’t worth the price of a child’s life. “Perhaps you were correct to challenge him.”

“There’s more,” said Nishan.

“Continue.”

“He went back. He went and stole the baby back. The Guild is after him.”

The Armorer forced herself to take a breath. Djarin wasn’t a _complete_ monster, then. Though the belated recognition of his error was sure to bring grave consequences.

Paz heaved a sigh. “I’ll gather our forces. We’ll get that idiot and the child out safely.”

* * *

Greef was caught between a rock and a hard place.

What, exactly, was one to do when the best hunter in your employ broke bad and took off with the most lucrative bounty in decades after taking payment for it? What, exactly, was one to do when the robbed client happened to be an Imperial remnant and was now breathing down your neck?

It stood to reason that you put a bounty out on said hunter.

To say that Mando had screwed him in the most royal of ways was an understatement. Karga had talked him up to The Client to an astronomical degree. “Best in the parsec.” “Worth his weight in beskar.” “Won’t ask questions.” The guy barely _talked_. Mando never gave any indication that his brain was capable of doing anything other than hunt. Never in his wildest dreams did Greef Karga ever imagine that Mando would be the one to suddenly develop a conscience at the worst possible moment and leave him in the lurch with an indebted client and his reputation in shambles.

He rubbed the left side of his chest, still sore from where Mando had shot him. _Mando fucking shot him_. If there was a silver lining to any of this, at least he could say that he’d been shot by a Mandalorian and survived. Surely those were worthy bragging rights.

A small part of his mind wondered if maybe, somehow, Mando had shot him there on purpose, remembering when Karga had shown the hunter his own payment of beskar, remembering where it lay in his jacket pocket. If maybe, somehow, Mando’s sudden bout of benevolence had extended to him in some small way to spare his life while still getting him off the ship.

It would’ve been a hell of a shot, if so. Moving? Through the jet of steam ejecting from the carbonite freezer? Doubtful.

But if anyone could do it, Mando could.

It didn’t matter in the long run. What mattered was getting the Imperial remnant off of Nevarro as soon as possible. They were bad for business. They were terrorizing the town. If that meant Mando’s head on a wall, so be it.

Chances of the bounty not working, not working in the time he would like, were high. Two hunters were already missing. Dead, if Karga was a betting man, and he was. He lacked confidence in any of the remaining hunters to bring Mando and the asset back within the year. They simply didn’t have what it took to go up against the Mandalorian.

He’d have to think of another way, then.

* * *

Cara couldn’t believe her eyes.

Mando had been as good as dead two hours ago. His blood was still dried into the creases of her hand and under her nails. He had refused her help, had insisted on a warrior’s death, and in so doing, made it clear that keeping that damned helmet on until his literal dying breath meant more to him than his little boy having a father.

God, she almost wanted to kill him herself for that.

Five seconds ago, he’d staggered to the front of the boat, shaking, barely able to stand on his own, swung the jetpack over his shoulders, clipped it in, and then launched himself into the air to tether Gideon’s TIE fighter.

Because having an E-web cannon battery blow up in his face and shatter his skull wasn’t enough.

The line between heroism and suicide was a fine one, and he seemed to have no qualms with jumping over it twice in one day.

Now, she watched as Gideon flung Mando through the air, and she wasn’t sure she could continue. She wasn’t sure she could watch him die _again_. Her breath caught as she saw Mando come off the TIE and she covered the baby’s eyes.

He fell.

He fell.

The TIE was ripped apart by an explosion and began to corkscrew through the air.

He fell.

Was he even moving?

He fell.

The TIE spun and crashed to the ground.

He fell.

_God DAMMIT Mando do something_.

He flailed.

He fell.

At last, the jetpack fired again, breaking his fall, and she could only hope it didn’t snap his spine in the process. She forced herself to breathe once again as she saw him get his feet under himself, correct his position, and land.

He was walking.

It was over.

Oh, thank god it was over and Mando hadn’t managed to make a huge mess of himself, hadn’t managed to turn himself into a beskar meteor and smash himself into the volcanic landscape of Nevarro.

In that moment, she understood that she couldn’t handle this guy.

She could fight a lot of things. She could fight a lot of people. But there was a certain level of madness that she could not fight, and Mando was riddled with it. Karga had said bounty hunters weren’t zealots. He was wrong. This one was. This one had put his Creed over his little boy not once, but twice. The first time when he sold the baby for the beskar, and the second time when he decided to die with his helmet on instead of try to live for his boy.

Maybe he thought his actions just now redeemed him of all that, but until he could find a method of redemption that didn’t involve almost killing himself, she would be unable to stand at his side. She loved him, loved him like a brother, but this part of him… this part she hated.

She would rather stay on Nevarro than stand by him just to watch him die.

_Take care of this kid, Mando. I hope you learn how to take care of yourself in the process._


End file.
